


you're the one who told me my hair looked better black

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Codependency, Comfort Sex, Dubious Consent, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, M/M, Post-Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Sibling Incest, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, but he's doing it anyway, i literally cannot seem to cut mags a break lately, maglor knows exactly how screwed up this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: In the wake of Finno's loss, Maedhros hasn't slept, and Maglor goes to Plan C: Desperation to try to get him to do so.
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo/Maglor | Makalaurë, also kind of russingon
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	you're the one who told me my hair looked better black

**Author's Note:**

> title from Shower Day by The Amazing Devil
> 
> hhhhhh
> 
> I'm writing horrible screwed-up relationship crap because the way I cope with stress is to make my favorite characters even more screwed-up
> 
> don't cope like mae & mags folks

Nelyo hasn’t slept in twenty-three days. At first, he tried to pretend he was sleeping, but lately—he stares at the wall when Maglor comes inside to check on him. He hasn’t slept since Maglor pulled him away from the battlefield, pulled him away from what was _left_ of their beautiful cousin. Maglor pretends he didn’t look over and didn’t see. He doesn’t wonder that Nelyo won’t sleep, afraid of what he’ll see in his dreams, but Maglor can’t stand it anymore. He’s tired, too; he’s afraid. Nelyo barely eats; his _fëa_ seems within an inch of fading altogether, and Maglor cannot do this without him.

So—so. He’s going to do the worst thing he’s ever done in his life, because if this won’t work, nothing will. It’s selfish and it’s cruel, but he can’t stand it anymore. If he’s lucky, Nelyo will think it nothing more than a sweet dream. So he stands in front of his mirror, slim and black-haired and dark-eyed, and he braids gold into the front of it. He dresses carefully—one of Finno’s old spare robes survived. It doesn’t smell like him—if it had Maglor would have given it to Maedhros already, and he thinks of the frustrated tears he dropped to the ground when he realized it was freshly laundered—but it fits well enough on Maglor’s slim form. As the next best thing, he has washed his hair with Maedhros’ shampoo, as Finno sometimes did when he was staying over.

In an attempt to make this a little more palatable, he tries to pretend that he’s playing a role in a performance. He’s always been a singer more than an actor, but a bard’s role can easily encompass both, and this is a role that Maglor knows well enough, in and out. He deepens his voice a little, but it’s more about the carelessness in the way he walks and speaks and thinks, the way he takes him space without thinking, but still—quite kindly.

When he comes to Nelyo’s bedchamber, he makes sure there is no light within and that he is backlit by the lights of the corridor. “Russo?” he calls out. His voice does not shake. “You’re not still awake, are you?”

He hears Maedhros gasp softly from inside, but he does not even speak. As Maglor approaches, his brother sobs softly. Maglor kneels on the bed, then, laughing in Fingon’s careless voice, says, “You must be so tired, dear Russo.”

Maedhros’s hand reaches out and clutches at his wrist, pulling Maglor against him. He sobs wordlessly into Maglor’s chest, and Maglor holds him close. “Russo, it’s all right—sweetheart, what’s the matter?”

Fingon will never forgive him for this. Maedhros probably won’t either. “Nightmare?” Maedhros whispers, at last, in a wrecked voice. “I don’t know. I’m so tired.”

“You haven’t slept in too long.” Somehow, Maglor keeps up Fingon’s practical tone of voice, even though there’s a lump forming in his own throat. “How like you.” He fits in the fond note of exasperation, the gentle coaxing, then the slight amused tease, “Shall I help relax you?”

He gets a small, helpless, breathless affirmative, and slings a leg over Maedhros’s.

“Foolish Russo,” he says, nibbling at Maedhros’s ear and running his hand down Maedhros’s inner thigh. “If you just slept when people told you to, you’d feel so much better.”

“Sorry,” gasps Maedhros, sounding desirous and dizzy and lost. Maglor pretends he doesn’t know why, pretends this is normal, pretends that it is _Findekáno_ pressing kisses down Maitimo’s neck to coax him to sleep in Valinor.

“What would you like?” he murmurs instead, and he doesn’t laugh, though he wants to—because he has _offered_ this before, but then he would have been Maitimo to Findekáno, and now he is Finno to Nelyo, and it is _hilarious_. But if he laughs, he’ll start crying too. Can’t do that. 

“Kiss me,” Maedhros begs, turning sideways to pull Maglor into his arms, and then they _are_ kissing, deep and desperate. Maglor remembers Fingon’s lips on his and tries to move his lips as Finno did as Maedhros’s hand moves up and down along his hip. It’s not how Maglor kisses—Fingon leads the kiss, often enough, and he would certainly do so now. So Maglor presses them tightly together, stroking his brother’s hair back from his face and straddling him. They both moan softly as the friction builds easily between them.

Maglor shouldn’t be hard. But Fingon would be.

It’s Maedhros’s hand that fumbles to remove the clothing between them, but Maglor helps him after the first breathless moment, shifting aside the layers of clothing to press heated skin to heated skin. Maglor is beginning to realize he is tired as well. Just because he’s been sleeping more than Maedhros doesn’t mean he’s been sleeping enough. But he can deal with that later.

Right now, he needs—he _needs_. Maedhros’s big hand presses their cocks together, and they’re rutting against one another hard. He presses his face into his brother’s neck to disguise the noises dropping from his mouth.

“Yes— _yes_ —oh—please—” Maedhros gasps, and Maglor whines into his neck. For one self-indulgent moment, he lets himself feel protected and held close and _seen_ by his big brother, the one he always thought would keep them safe, forever, the desperate faith he clung to even in the wake of his father’s growing madness, even as everything else fell apart around them. _Nelyo, Nelyo—_

_It will be all right,_ Nelyo has told him so many times, holding him close when he was a child and crying with nightmares. 

“Everything’s fine, Russo,” he croons in Fingon’s voice into Maedhros’s ear. “Relax.” It feels so good, and he’s falling apart, trembling, against his brother’s rough skin. It’s so good, and it shouldn’t be, but it is. They’re kissing again, rutting more and more urgently now, and Maedhros’s tongue is in Maglor’s mouth. 

Maedhros’s hand squeezes their cocks together, and then Maglor feels him coming, hard, the stump of his right hand pressing hard against Maglor’s back, and that’s enough to tip Maglor, shaking, over the edge as well.

He sits in his brother’s lap for a moment, gathering his courage, and then he kisses him gently and runs a hand through Nelyo’s hair. “ _Now_ will you sleep?” he asks, pushing fond exasperation into his voice. An exhausted nod, right against his chest. “Good. There’s my Russo.” Shakily, he disengages and kneels on the bed beside Maedhros, then helps him lie down and starts rubbing his back, soft and soothing and slow. Maedhros shudders at the touch, but leans into it. 

“Stay,” he breathes, and Maglor tucks his knees up behind Maedhros’s and curls up close behind him.

“ _Sleep_ ,” he begs.

“Yes.” Thank Eru, Maedhros’s breathing is finally starting to smooth out. Maglor holds him as his breathing deepens and his muscles relax, and it’s only when he realizes that he’s slipping towards sleep himself that he knows he needs to leave. He can’t be here when Maedhros wakes up.

He rises silently from the bed and is almost to the door when Maedhros stirs, and Maglor freezes.

“Thank you,” his brother’s voice whispers at the edge of hearing, blurring softly, and Maglor doesn’t know if there are syllables between that and the next sound he makes, the final breath before slipping into slumber, “Káno.”


End file.
